The Elephant's Instruction Manual

(Part 2 of: The Elephant Standing in the Room Wearing a Sunflower Lanyard)

The Elephant’s Instruction Manual Or, what exactly is Positive Behaviour Support, and why are we not talking about where it came from?

In our previous piece, The Elephant Standing in the Room Wearing a Sunflower Lanyard, we asked an uncomfortable question (or two).

Namely, what happens when the disability sector begins speaking the language of neurodiversity, trauma-informed practice, and neuroaffirming care… while still operating through frameworks historically built around observing, managing, modifying, and intervening upon autistic behaviour?

The response from many providers was predictable.

You misunderstand PBS. This isn’t ABA. Positive Behaviour Support has evolved. We are rights-based. We focus on quality of life. We are neuroaffirming.

So perhaps the real question is simpler.

What exactly is Positive Behaviour Support?

Because before we can ask whether PBS can ever truly become neuroaffirming, we need to understand where it came from. And history, as it often does, complicates the story considerably.

First, where PBS actually comes from

Positive Behaviour Support did not emerge as some entirely new disability rights framework. It was not born from autistic liberation movements. It was not developed through neurodiversity scholarship. It did not emerge from disabled communities collectively asking for new models of autonomy.

PBS emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the United States. Its architects included behavioural researchers like Edward Carr, Glen Dunlap, and Robert Horner. And importantly, PBS emerged as a response to something genuinely horrific.

At the time, institutional disability services frequently relied on overtly punitive behaviourist practices.

Aversive conditioning. Punishment procedures. Restraint. Seclusion. Compliance training. Extinction-based interventions.

The dominant question professionals were asking was brutally simple: How do we stop this behaviour?

PBS attempted to soften this approach.

Rather than asking how to eliminate behaviour, practitioners did begin asking:

What function does this behaviour serve? What is the individual trying to communicate? What environmental factors contribute to distress? How can we modify the environment instead of punishing the person?

For many professionals, this represented significant progress.And perhaps compared to what came before, it was.

But here is the distinction we cannot ignore.

PBS did not abandon behaviourism. It refined it. It moved from punishment toward environmental management. From overt coercion toward relational intervention. From stopping the behaviour to understanding the behaviour.

And these philosophies matter.

PBS in the United States: where behaviourism remains closest to the surface

The United States remains perhaps the strongest behaviourist stronghold globally.

It is often sold as the sole pathway to Medicaid-funded supports. And remains deeply connected to the Applied Behaviour Analysis ecosystem.

Practitioners often come directly from backgrounds in ABA, behavioural psychology, special education, and developmental disability services.

Professional certification structures like the Behaviour Analyst Certification Board continue heavily shaping training pathways.

And in practice, PBS frequently still involves:

Functional Behaviour Assessments. Antecedent modification. Reinforcement schedules. Behaviour tracking. Skill acquisition programs. Data collection. Extinction procedures.

The language has softened dramatically. But structurally, behaviour remains the organising principle.

This is precisely why autistic self-advocates in the United States, including scholars like Nick Walker and Amy Sequenzia, continue raising concerns.

Because the question remains:

If autistic expression is still something professionals are fundamentally trained to analyse and modify, how much has truly changed?

PBS in the United Kingdom: softer language, familiar architecture

The United Kingdom took a somewhat different path.

PBS expanded largely through intellectual disability services and NHS frameworks.

Its rise accelerated after horrifying abuse scandals such as Winterbourne View exposed widespread institutional violence within disability services.

Following these scandals, PBS became increasingly framed around reducing (traceable) restrictive practices.

Reducing restraint. Reducing seclusion. Improving quality of life. Reducing so-called challenging behaviour.

The UK increasingly integrates trauma-informed language, disability rights discourse, and social care ethics.

On paper, this looked progressive. And in many ways, it was a meaningful improvement. But underneath, the architecture remained familiar.

Professionals still conduct behavioural assessments. Function analysis. Intervention planning. Environmental modification. Behavioural outcome measurement.

Again:The philosophy softened. The behavioural lens remained.

Autistic advocates in the UK, including David Gray-Hammond, increasingly challenge this contradiction directly.

Because gentler coercion is still coercion if the power structures remain untouched.

Australia may be the most concerning example

Australia presents something quite different. And arguably, more politically troubling.

Because here, PBS has become institutionalised directly through the NDIS.

This is no longer simply a therapeutic framework. It is a funding mechanism. A bureaucratic system. An industry.

PBS in Australia is now deeply connected to: Behaviour support plans. Restrictive practice authorisations. Safeguarding frameworks. Funded behavioural intervention. Mandatory reporting structures. Practitioner registration systems.

Under NDIS regulation, practitioners commonly write plans concerning:  Aggression. Self-injury. Absconding. Property destruction. Emotional dysregulation. Restrictive practice reduction.

And the language sounds progressive.

Person-centred practice. Dignity of risk. Rights-based frameworks. Trauma-informed support. Capacity building. Quality of life.

But here lies the contradiction.

The NDIS funding architecture itself rewards very particular things.

Measurable progress. Documentation. Functional improvement. Capacity building outcomes. Risk management. Behavioural reporting.

Which means PBS in Australia is often not simply support.

The practitioner is not merely helping. They are producing documentation for a state-funded regulatory apparatus.

Let's not forget how these systems are tied together. Because governance disguised as support is still governance.

Universities are reproducing the same assumptions. This is perhaps where the problem begins, or at least is reinforced.

Across Australia, PBS is typically taught through disciplines such as: Psychology. Applied Behaviour Analysis. Occupational Therapy. Speech Pathology. Social Work. Developmental Education. Special Education.

But notice what sits underneath this training. The dominant epistemology remains remarkably consistent.

Behaviour can be objectively observed. Behaviour serves measurable functions. Professionals can identify causal variables. Intervention improves outcomes. Behavioural data allows objective planning.

But what is often missing?

Autistic scholarship. Critical disability theory. Neurodiversity theory. Mad Studies. Embodied experience. Sensory processing scholarship. Relational autonomy frameworks.

The Double Empathy Problem developed by Damian Milton rarely sits centrally within professional training. Nor do the works of Henny Kupferstein. Jillian Enright. Mel Baggs. Nick Walker. David Gray-Hammond. Helen Edgar. Or many more...

Instead, professionals are overwhelmingly taught to become observers of autistic distress. Not participants in dismantling disabling environments.

The uncomfortable financial reality nobody wants to discuss: This may be the most politically important issue of all.

In Australia: PBS is billable under the NDIS. Providers can build entire businesses around PBS referrals. Entire organisations now exist primarily because behavioural intervention attracts funding. And that creates an uncomfortable incentive structure.

Because the system financially rewards identifying behavioural concerns requiring professional intervention. Which means something deeply uncomfortable becomes true. The more behaviour that requires management…The more work exists for providers.

This does not mean practitioners themselves are malicious. Most genuinely believe they are helping. But structures matter. Economies matter. And systems built around intervention tend to preserve themselves.

The deeper philosophical fault line

This is where autistic scholarship becomes essential. Nick Walker. Jillian Enright. David Gray-Hammond. Henny Kupferstein. Damian Milton. Mel Baggs. Hellen Edgar. All in different ways force us toward the same uncomfortable question.

The question is not: Is PBS kinder than old behaviourism?

It often is.

The question is far deeper: Why does autistic distress continue being framed as something professionals are authorised to observe, interpret, document, analyse, and intervene upon?

Why are autistic nervous system responses still filtered through behavioural interpretation? Why does distress become behaviour? Why does sensory overwhelm become behaviour? Why does shutdown become behaviour? Why does refusal become behaviour? Why does autistic embodiment remain something institutions feel entitled to study from the outside?

That assumption itself remains largely untouched.

And that is the philosophical fault line running beneath this entire conversation.

Australia may be pioneering something dangerous. And here is the uncomfortable possibility we need to confront.

Australia may be becoming one of the first countries to fully industrialise behavioural governance under the language of rights, inclusion, and neuroaffirming care.

The system now says: We are rights-based. We are trauma-informed. We are neuroaffirming. We focus on quality of life. We reduce restrictive practices.

And all of that sounds reassuring.

But underneath?

Autistic and disabled people are still frequently positioned as subjects of professional observation. Still documented. Still assessed. Still measured. Still managed through intervention frameworks. Still expected to progress toward institutionally acceptable outcomes. Towards normativity.

The language evolved. The architecture often remained.

That leaves a question we need to keep asking...

This conversation is not about whether individual practitioners are kind. Many are.

It is not about whether some PBS practitioners genuinely care. Many do.

It is not about rejecting support.

It is about asking whether systems built on behavioural observation can ever fully align with frameworks grounded in autistic autonomy.

Because neurodiversity was never simply a request for gentler intervention.

It was a challenge to the assumption that autistic people needed intervention in the first place.

And until the disability sector is willing to interrogate that assumption honestly…

The elephant remains exactly where it has always been. Standing quietly in the room.

Only now…

It has learned the language of trust. And it still wears the sunflower lanyard.